I am currently doing a course in Web Design- the current module I am studying is in regards to Microsoft Expression Web, does anyone use this to design websites?

As I haven't really heard anyone mention on these forums as of yet?

Just curious really

xhtmlcoder
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2013-11-06T10:36:02Z —
#2

Hmm. MS Expression Web has been Discontinued for quite a while. In either case I wouldn't have thought many people would have used it for producing markup - even when it was active. The hands should code; not the program; so it's probably a case of the tutor just wanted to use a free editor and had written course material using that program years ago.

ontargett
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2013-11-06T11:31:44Z —
#3

Thanks for the swift response, I didn't know it was discontinued.

The course was written in 2008, and they favour Microsoft programs- I didn't really enjoy using Expression, will stick to Dreamweaver from now on.

Thanks again

ralphm
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2013-11-06T13:06:13Z —
#4

ontargett said:

The course was written in 2008, and they favour Microsoft programs

Sounds more like a history course than a web design course. Colleges are notorious for being behind the times, so beware of that.

ontargett
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2013-11-06T14:10:16Z —
#5

Yep I've found that @ralph_m A few bits are outdated. But the majority of it have given me some good fundamentals, and use online tutorials to take it to the next stage

7Designer
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2013-11-06T22:03:37Z —
#6

I've known teachers also to not keep up with the times. You will get the odd teacher who tries to teach you using their own personal favorites, but it's not necessarily the right road to go down. When I studied my web design module a while ago, I had already been doing it for years, and the teacher too didn't really know much more than creating some divs and putting the images in it. Constantly I heard teachings of certain wrong doings in web development world, but obviously I wouldn't want to correct him as that would be rude, but just an example.

Definitely stick with Dreamweaver, I personally don't use it anymore but the code part of Dreamweaver is great and makes it easy to see everything clearly. Switching back and forth from the Visual to Code will give you an understanding of how your code is working. Keep at it! Just don't use that Microsoft thing... like.. its from Microsoft... you know... the makers of Internet Explorer... nobody should have to put up with IE...

ralphm
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2013-11-06T22:08:57Z —
#7

7Designer said:

Switching back and forth from the Visual to Code will give you an understanding of how your code is working.

Although it's pretty unreliable, so it's much better to check your progress in real browsers like Chrome and Firefox. (Check as many browsers as you can as often as you can, as it's better to spot problems as they occur, rather than when you want to launch the site.)

7Designer
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2013-11-06T22:17:01Z —
#8

ralph_m said:

Although it's pretty unreliable, so it's much better to check your progress in real browsers like Chrome and Firefox. (Check as many browsers as you can as often as you can, as it's better to spot problems as they occur, rather than when you want to launch the site.)

Absolutely, sorry should have been more clear. I was thinking more along the lines of when you're coding and create a div for example, you can check the visual editor just to see what it does. Definitely always check the code in browsers.

ralphm
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2013-11-06T22:21:19Z —
#9

Indeed, although I find it just as easy to check the browser even for a div.

We see a lot of questions here where people have built the whole site just checking DW design view, and then get a shock that the site looks totally different in browsers. From what I understand, Design View is based on a browser (an old version of Opera?) but it's still not very reliable.

7Designer
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2013-11-06T22:40:31Z —
#10

ralph_m said:

Indeed, although I find it just as easy to check the browser even for a div.

We see a lot of questions here where people have built the whole site just checking DW design view, and then get a shock that the site looks totally different in browsers. From what I understand, Design View is based on a browser (an old version of Opera?) but it's still not very reliable.

Yeah, I think because personally I started years ago in Dreamweaver with no idea what I was doing, that I learned from the mistakes that Dreamweaver was throwing at me. So when I saw a problem come up in my browser, I learned from it and figured out how to fix the problem. So to me it helped me figure things out. I do totally agree though that testing in proper browsers is much better. I only ever use a text editor now but before that, I think a visual editor was easier for me personally to look at and see what certain things did, then went in and edited code to learn more.

ontargett
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2013-11-07T10:33:42Z —
#11

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

This course is an open learning course, so using provided study materials and online "labs" So the only means I have of help is to email the tutor who could take a few days to get back to me..this is why this forum is so helpful.

Dreamweaver is a great help to me, I can see it in design view and have a good understanding of the layouts and tools used to create a website now. Is there an easier way than checking the appearance of websites other than using the "Preview" tool in Dreamweaver? As I am finding it time consuming having to check every browser one by one? If not no worries, suppose I'm just being lazy

Also I have heard a lot of people disregard Microsoft on here, especially Internet Explorer. Having gone from PC's to Apple myself it has completely opened my eyes to how slick and "sexy" Apple operating systems run, the only thing I have learnt is that you can't really add any extra memory etc to Apple's in the same way you can to PC's unless I am wrong (I am a novice in upgrading computers so please forgive me if this sounds naive) What is the big problem with Internet Explorer, and why don't they make the fixes, or are they just too stubborn?

Thanks again guys

ArnavKumar
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2013-11-07T11:47:35Z —
#12

Why not HTML for Web designing?

ralphm
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2013-11-07T12:14:56Z —
#13

ontargett said:

I am finding it time consuming having to check every browser one by one? If not no worries, suppose I'm just being lazy

There are some online tools that throw up screen shots of a wide range of browsers, but nothing beats testing in the real thing. You can have many browsers open at once, and it's as simple as a page refresh. Can't get much easier than that IMHO.

Also I have heard a lot of people disregard Microsoft on here, especially Internet Explorer.... What is the big problem with Internet Explorer, and why don't they make the fixes, or are they just too stubborn?

Past versions have tended to be very buggy, which has led IE to being the whipping boy of web designers. It's been a big problem that MS has, in the past, just put these dudd browsers out there and not updated them, which has left us with a pile of turds in the bowl that won't flush. Thankfully, the latest versions of IE will auto update, which pretty much means the woeful age of IE bugs will fade away in the near future, once the older browsers have fallen out of use. (That is being held up by other MS problems, such as their crappy operating systems like XP that people won't upgrade and that don't run the newest IE browser versions. :rolleyes: )

you can't really add any extra memory etc to Apple's

You certainly can add extra memory to Macs. (They never sell with their memory capacity maxed out, just to keep the price down, I guess.)

ArnavKumar said:

Why not HTML for Web designing?

HTML is the basis of web design, so no one is suggesting not using it.

ontargett
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2013-11-07T12:55:28Z —
#14

Cheers @ralph.m really helpful.

I'll have a look into speeding up my mac then, must just be a pre-conceived idea I had!

I will also make sure I have the browsers installed so I can go through them all.

ralphm
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2013-11-07T13:35:53Z —
#15

I'll have a look into speeding up my mac then, must just be a pre-conceived idea I had!

There's a slot where the memory goes in most Macs, and you just slip it out and put a bigger one in.

I will also make sure I have the browsers installed so I can go through them all.

You can even install something like Parallels, Fusion or VirtualBox on your Mac and run Windows alongside your Mac apps, or install Windows on your Mac and boot up in Windows separately from Mac, though that's less convenient.

ontargett
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2013-11-07T16:03:28Z —
#16

ralph_m said:

You can even install something like Parallels, Fusion or VirtualBox on your Mac and run Windows alongside your Mac apps, or install Windows on your Mac and boot up in Windows separately from Mac, though that's less convenient.

I used boot camp to do this once, for another reason, but would find that a bit annoying having to switch between the two operating systems

ralphm
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2013-11-08T01:25:57Z —
#17

ontargett said:

I used boot camp to do this once, for another reason, but would find that a bit annoying having to switch between the two operating systems

Yeah, me too. I use VMWare Fusion at the moment, which means that I have various versions of IE (in various OSes) open alongside the Mac browsers, all at once. Works very well and is very convenient.

Fusion can be a bit clunky at times, though, so next time I'll be tempted to try Parallels to see if it's any better.

ontargett
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2013-11-08T07:11:28Z —
#18

So does VMware fusion appear on the same screen without having to swap and change like boot camp?

ralphm
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2013-11-08T07:26:32Z —
#19

ontargett said:

So does VMware fusion appear on the same screen without having to swap and change like boot camp?

Yes. You can have Fusion open like any other program, and thus see Windows 7 as well as your normal desktop. You can install multiple versions of Windows, if you like, and have them all open at once in a series of "virtual machines". Thus you can have a whole bunch of IE versions open at once. And you can minimise all those versions of IE in your dock and open them again, just like all your other Mac browsers and apps. It's the same as if you had IE installed on the Mac like any other app. Pretty cool. and you can drag and drop files from Mac to Windows and vice versa, too, which is nice. And you can stick Windows only DVDs etc. in the Mac's disk drive and they open in Windows.

system
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2013-11-11T15:26:44Z —
#20

Expression Web is outdated no one uses it anymore.I suggest you use Brackets by adobe, read this - article by Raymond Camden